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To get the most from cosmopolitan Paris, go beyond the obvious. For instance, the best view in town may not be from the top of the Eiffel Tower, but from the top of the Montparnasse Tower. It's cheaper and easier to get up here. The view includes the Eiffel Tower as well as everything else. This is an ideal place to start off. They sell a great photomap of the city. Orient yourself, pick out the big sites on the map and find them out there. There is the Sacre Coeur, Notre Dame. Just like on the map. An orientation from a viewpoint like this makes it much easier to find your way around down there. For another easy do-it-yourself orientation, we can join a ride on a public bus. Guidebooks through the local tourist office can recommend the most scenic routes. I like the views from Line 63. Or we can cruise through Paris in one of their river tour boats. Make a point to figure out the urban lane of the land as soon as you arrive in any of Europe cities.
On any city map, we travellers can usually ignore the urban sprawl. Normally, what we want to see is in the old city center. Now, don’t sweat the details. Let’s see how the concept works. Here’s where Paris was born - Ile de la Cité. That’s where it all began. And it’s where the city’s most historic buildings like the Notre Dame sit today. Paris grew beyond the island’s natural fortifications onto the right bank and onto the left bank, then it grew beyond its Medieval walls. In modern times, many congested cities like Paris replaced their ingrown Medieval walls with grand circular boulevards. So most of the historic points of interest lie within these ring roads.
To cover more territory, traffic and streets for you, I ride the subway. Many European cities have subway systems, the one in Paris is about the best in the world. So let’s figure out what the locals call, Le Metro.
You can go anywhere in town for one reasonable price. Save about 40 percent by buying a carnet of ten tickets. Pick up a free metro map and reorient yourself using the metro lines. Metro stops are city landmarks. They appear on maps. Locals use them for giving directions and guidebooks list the nearest metro stop parenthetically after the address of the site or hotel. There is a metro stop within a short walk of any place in downtown Paris. We are going to our hotel over here in the Lecleir neighborhood. And to get there, we find our route on the subway map, we will have to transfer. The metro lines crisscross. To determine our direction, we look for the names of the last stops on the lines we need. If we start at Odeon,we will head off in the direction of Bolon and transfer at la motte picquet. Then in the direction of Critair to ecole militaire.
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